Time and Tide for Nae Man Bide
by UnderwaterOphelia
Summary: A witch's curse flings Kagome into the Scottish Highlands over 100 years after the final battle. Will Inuyasha ever find her again?
1. Chapter 1

A chill swept through the forest as an old Yubaba cackled in front of her scrying mirror, watching an inuhanyou gaze at a young woman fondly.

"No my child, you shall never find your happiness. I forbid it, just as your wretched father and brother forbade me from living on their lands. I'll send her away, far away, somewhere you'll never find her."

* * *

**_1500, one month after the final battle_**

_It is going to happen tonight._ "It _will_ happen tonight." Kagome muttered to herself. She was tired of this dancing around she and Inuyasha were doing. The jewel was gone, Naraku was dead, and everything seemed perfect.

That is, everything except Kagome's love life.

Sango and Miroku were over two married weeks ago, and yet she and Inuyasha had barely kissed since their victory, despite living together in the same household. What was up with him? She was a healthy eighteen year old woman, and she wanted passion, romance, hell she'd settle for a date.

Sighing as she brought in the fresh laundry from the line, she looked over at Inuyasha in his customary position against the wall. He still hadn't adapted well to sleeping in futons, but most nights he'd humor her as she inched her own futon over to the wall to be near him.

Nodding firmly to herself as she turned her head to the fading dusk light outside, she began the process of setting up her futon, with one difference. Kagome set out Inuyasha's futon next to her own. Their eyes met and she watched his widen in understanding.

Inuyasha stood and moved to help her move the futons together, locking eyes together in tension. He brought a hesitant hand to cup her cheek as his lips descended towards hers, but their lips never met.

Because with a crackle of dark miko energy and Inuyasa's harsh cry of her name, she vanished.

* * *

_**1506**_

The piercing cry of a newborn rang through the village and though Inuyasha flattened his ears to his head, he congratulated Miroku on his second child. The inuhanyou and monk waited outside while some of the village women helped Sango after the birth, only allowed in after she was decent again.

As the reed mat was moved aside to let the boys in, Inuyasha's nose twitched. _What was that smell, so familiar somehow? _A closer look at the newborn and a sniff told him everything he needed to know.

Soft brown eyes blinked up into golden, and the child smiled. Miroku named the girl Ishi, but Inuyasha knew her for who she truly was. A doppleganger, a strange mix somewhere between Kikyo and Kagome, stared at him in the face of an infant. Under the stink of sour sweat and sweet milk, further down than the smell of babe fresh from the womb, was a mix of new and old. A scent he hadn't thought to smell again, at least not for another five hundred years.

Sango and Miroku didn't quite understand why Inuyasha had run out of their home like the hounds of hell were on his heels, a silent tear slipping down his cheek to be roughly brushed away, but they speculated. Could it be because he missed Kagome? Could he be thinking of how he would have had his own family now if she hadn't vanished? When he looked at their children, did he see the future he'd once envisioned for himself?

The young couple knew he stayed around the village for their sake through the years, but as their children grew older they noticed more and more how he would disappear for weeks on end. Even more perplexing was the odd similarities between Ishi and their missing friend Kagome.

But it wasn't until Ishi's sixteenth birthday that they fully realized what was going on. After years of training with the foxes, Shippo had finally come back to visit and stopped in surprise when he saw Ishi helping Sango with dinner.

"Kagome?" Sango looked in surprise between the young kitsune and her teenage daughter, who simply blinked in confusion. As Shippo explained the similarities of their scents and faces to Sango later that night, Inuyasha packed a bag in the dead of night.

He wouldn't return until he was sure Ishi passed on. It wouldn't be fair for any of them.

* * *

**1621**

When news that an ogre was attacking Edo reached Inuyasha in the next village over, he almost didn't want to go. But despite not returning to that area for nearly a century, he couldn't make himself ignore the pleas of the villagers begging him to slay the oni. Many of them had family and friends in Edo, and they'd been kinder to him than most villages were. They'd allowed him to live on the outskirts of the village as long as he protected them from bandits and youkai. And so he returned to Edo, assuring himself that Ishi, Sango and Miroku were long gone.

The oni was a pitiful thing really, all brawn and no brain. Easy to overcome, easy to collect payment. After helping a few villagers replace roofs that had caved in and doors flung off in the ogre's rampage, the headman offered him a few coins and dinner as payment.

He should have said no.

History always repeats itself, and the red string of fate threatened to choke him in it's grip this time. The girl across the low chabudai table sat staring at him with Kikyo's scent and Kagome's eyes. The girl's soft features beckoned him and her curious eyes followed every movement, sensing something otherworldly between them. Her father called her Tsuru and she tried to initiate a conversation with him to thank him for his service to their village.

Paying no mind to how they perceived his table manners, he quickly polished off the elaborate food and stood, brushing off their plea to stay the night. He couldn't. They didn't know that, but he couldn't stay.

If he stayed, he'd give in. He'd take her that night, the way he'd never been able to take Kagome. He'd settle down with her and live his life in simplicity. Maybe he'd fall in love all over again. The two women shared the same soul after all, right? Didn't that make them soulmates?

But it wasn't _**her**_ yet.

He traveled all night and into the next day to reach the gaijin town of Hirado and bought himself passage on the next cargo ship out of port. That red string wouldn't reach him until the time was right, this he vowed to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**_April 30, 1630, Nine years after Inuyasha left Japan_**

By the time he arrived in Nairn, Inuyasha was dirty, sweaty, and exhausted. He'd arrived in a small seafaring town in the lowlands earlier that day after being granted passage on a small boat carrying goods in from the mainland.

Thinking back to his last voyage across the sea nine years ago, he chuckled at his own previous naïveté. This time he knew better than to flaunt his demonic heritage so unwisely. Foreigners were much more suspicious of his supernatural attributes than the villagers in Japan. The crew of the Dutch ship he'd bought passage from had complained endlessly about the "devil" on board, and though he didn't speak Flemish or French, he definitely spoke fisticuffs.

Now when he needed to travel he'd use leather grease to make his hair brown and braid it to hide his ears. It was uncomfortable and sticky, but it gave him the appearance of a mostly normal human. And at least with the braid it was out of his face, off his shoulders, and the tacky feeling of the grease didn't get everywhere. His eyes he could just say were a very light brown.

But once he was in the Highlands, the true Highlands, he'd be wild and free again. During his travels through France and England he'd heard about the savage Scots and how their land was untamed, still lacking the dense human population of everywhere else. It would be a perfect place to hunker down and wait for time to pass. To pass the centuries waiting for her.

Shuffling the strap of his leather bag and moving through the town square, he found an inn with a vacant room and paid for the night. Weighing the need for food over the need for sleep, he decided food came first and sat at the bar.

As the innkeeper's wife brought him a simple meal and a glass of something strong, he overheard the conversation happening to his left despite the cramping of his folded ears. The two men were clearly drunk and talking about someone named Glaistig, or maybe that was a title? After nine years his English was good, but the way the men switched back and forth between it and the Scots Gael made it hard to follow the conversation.

He did, however, pick up that the woman was a witch, and made a note to visit the old crone later. Maybe she'd have a charm or a potion he could use to disguise himself better. The last witch he'd come across had made him a dye for his hair, but she'd died several years ago and he'd run out, thus having to use the leather grease again. His ears twitched under the weight of his braid as he heard the men leave for something called a cèilidh, and in the distance he heard a loud cheer go up at the sound of pipes starting a song.

With the last swig of his ale, he nodded to the landlady and handed over enough coin for the meal and a room. She showed him up to his room on the second floor and left him to settle in, closing the door behind her. With a snort of his nostrils, he opened the shutters to the window to air out the room. As he looked out over the small village he spotted an eerie distant flickering on the border of the forest, seeming to lead off onto a trail into the darkness. It was definitely supernatural in nature, a bright blue flickering ghost of some sort.

Eyebrows raised, he could just barely see the outline of a young woman and her several children being led down the path by the lights and he turned away, not wanting to get involved. Scoffing at himself as he paced the room and debated if he should intervene, it was the sight of the three small children following their mother and the babe in her arms that had him leaping out the window after them. He kept to the shadows as best he could in order to not draw the villagers attention, and luckily most of them seemed to be at some kind of party in the town square.

Inuyasha darted over a felled tree and stopped just short of the tree line where the small family had been led, the smell and sounds of the river winding through it obscuring his senses. The clearing was lit up with the spirits he'd seen earlier, their gentle blue lights illuminating the dark forest and deep water. As he stopped to watch the young woman and her brood, a few details hit him at once.

First, the little ghostly lights didn't seem to be threatening the group at all. They seemed to just be floating there, as if they actually wanted to illuminate the trail for the group. Second, this was a very strange bunch of children. A teenage boy whipped his head towards the intruder and the moss colored cloak fluttered in the breeze behind him. Wait was that actual moss? And why was his hair green?

And the two younger children didn't seem any less strange. The older girl seemed to be covered in pearlescent scales and had webbed fingers that were plaiting her wet copper hair into a braid. The younger boy growling at him actually just looked like a wolf hanyou, with brown furry ears sprouting from his head, a brown tail with it's hackles raised, and a bit of extra fur on the forearms and jawline.

But it was the woman bathing in the river, holding a naked infant to her breast, that stopped him in his tracks.

The gods were torturing him. What other explanation was there? How could this be another Kagome preincarnation when there was one already living in Edo? Even if Tsuru had died in the nine years since he'd found her in Japan, that wasn't enough time for a reincarnation. It always seemed to follow a pattern of about 50 years passing between the death and birth of each new incarnation.

So then what was this doppelganger doing in the Scottish Highlands decades too soon? He slowly backed away and faintly heard the children whispering to the fake Kagome. The girl swiftly handed the infant to the eldest boy and drew out of the water. Inuyasha caught a glimpse of supple skin and pale curves as the woman brought a léine shirt over her head and draped a plaid loosely around her form.

"Halò? Cò tha ann?" At his lack of response the woman whispered to the children and took back the baby before switching to English "Maybe you don't speak Scots? You can come out if you'd like. We won't hurt you." The sound of her voice pierced his heart. Was it not enough to torment him with her familiar face? Did her voice have to match as well?

She tried a few more greetings in different languages at his lack of response, but eventually she fell silent and shrugged at the children's questioning gazes. "We've got to go now, but we'll be here every night at gloaming, if you'd like to come back. I live on the outskirts of town if you need anything. Just ask for the Glaistig if you run into any trouble."

As she gathered up the bathing supplies into a small basket and wrapped the tiny infant into a sling, the green haired boy grabbed the two other children by the hand and led the way back through the forest trail. The spirits he'd initially thought were leading the group to their doom twinkled about brightening the footpath and guiding the way back to town. He waited until he could no longer sense them before standing from his defensive crouch, and fled back to the inn.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Glossary of terms:**_

ban-fhiosaiche- female wise woman

bean ghlúine- midwife

Selkie- "seal folk" are mythological beings capable of changing from seal to human form by shedding their skin (pelt).

Ceasg- half-woman/half-fish creatures have the power to grant three wishes to anyone that catches one.

Wulver- taking the form of a man with a wolf's head or other attributes, they are gentle creatures.

Ghillie Dubh- a solitary male fairy. He was kindly and reticent yet sometimes wild in character but had a gentle devotion to children.

Glaistig- "Green Lady" a Highland Fairy or a once-mortal woman who has joined them. Often depicted as a beautiful woman with long hair and faun legs.

Léine- The word "léine" can be and has been translated from the Gaelic as "shirt" as well as "tunic." The léine can be seen under the plaid.

_**May 1, 1630, Beltane**_

Kagome watched the town square light up with activity from her front porch as the Beltane preparations were made. As one of the few local wise women, she would be centerstage for the festivities once darkness set. It had taken a while to gain the trust of the villagers and other ban-fhiosaiche and bean ghlúine, but once she had she was well taken care of and left to her own devices. She was particularly fond of the fact that the women of the town preferred her to be their bean ghlúine despite her foreign ways, and she'd helped birth more healthy babes and kept more mothers alive than any other midwife.

Looking down at the tiny suckling child at her breast, she was reminded of one of those unfortunate times when it hadn't worked out so well. James was one of the few whose mother didn't make it. Kagome caressed his delicate whiskers and tucked his dappled seal pelt a bit closer into him. It was the only thing besides nursing that actually comforted him. The poor doll's mother had been seduced by a male Selkie who left her when she fell pregnant, and the birth had been too traumatic for Nellie to survive it.

When the midwife Dierdre who'd attended the birth brought James to her three weeks ago, it was because she knew that Kagome was the little guy's best chance at survival. For a whole day Kagome had fretted over James, trying to figure out how to feed him somehow, until Mairead had come forward with the secret that she could grant wishes if she tried hard enough. Kagome had rescued the little half Ceasg when she'd had her webbed foot caught in a fishing net, and the girl had followed her ever since. Mairead's pearlescent scales had shined bright white as Kagome wished for the ability to nurse little James, and once the light died down the girl had slept for three days afterward.

Brought out of her memories by a small hand coming up to grip hers, she smiled down at her little family, thankful for the company. Kagome stroked a hand through Faolan's fur, the small Wulver leaning in to get better head scratches. He had shown up on her doorstep about a year ago, the tiny toddler looking very confused and alone. The sight of little brown wolf ears had broken her heart at first, so similar to Inuyasha's own silver ones.

Ciaran placed a hand on her shoulder as if reading her thoughts. The most solemn of them all, the young Ghillie Dubh looked out into the forest as if searching for something. Unlike the rest of her adopted children, Ciaran had really adopted her. She had been just 18 when she was wrenched out of Inuyasha's arms and into a strange forest in the middle of the night. She'd wandered for days in the woods, hungry, cold, and tired, until she'd found a soft bower of flowers and moss to lay in. When she'd awoken it was to a pair of emerald eyes staring into hers. An unruly mop of seaweed green hair lay under his cloak, which was actually a mantle of moss and flowered in the springtime, like now.

Apparantly that night she had stumbled across his bed and laid in it without realizing it. Luckily, Ghillie Dubhs were fairly harmless fae, and he'd allowed it, eventually even welcomed it. He'd taught her Gaelic by using her rudimentary knowledge of English as a translation, and kept her warm and fed through the cool springtime days and nights.

Looking up at the tall adolescent, she realized that all through these years he hadn't aged one bit. He'd told her once that he'd stopped counting how old he was long ago, but he was still not quite an adult in fae society. He came and went as he pleased, but most nights he sat atop their roof to guard the house against any curious fae coming to prank them. She was grateful, not many humans could boast the protection of a Ghillie Dubh.

Noting the low position of the sun and realizing that they'd need to rush bath time tonight, she shooed the children down the forest trail and looked askance into the trees. Ciaran had told her that the man from yesterday had been hanging around town all day, but he couldn't sense what kind of fae they were. She knew he'd come out on his own time, if at all. In her experience, you couldn't force any supernatural being to trust you, though she pratically had her own litter of them at this point.

They arrived in the clearing and the girls stripped down, Kagome opting to keep on her léine undershirt for modesty this time, knowing they might have company. She unwrapped James from his swaddling pelt and gently stepped into the water, washing him softly in her arms as Maireid frolicked in the water. Both young water fae needed daily dips in the river or their health suffered. She tried to drag Ciaran and Faolan into the water, but the boys resisted tonight, disliking the feel of wet moss and soaked fur.

James seemed to blink his big black eyes up at her and smile against her chest, bringing tiny webbed hands up to clutch her shirt. He really was such an easy baby. Ciaran had explained that most fae babes didn't fuss much, as their mothers were fickle creatures likely to adandon them, but she wouldn't have cared even if he was a fussy child. He was her baby, and she was his mother.

The snap of a twig had all of their heads turning to the treeline, waiting with bated breath. A man in woolen black hose, a billowing yellow shirt, and a black vest stepped out into the fading light. His hair was brown and slicked into a long French braid, whisps falling out around the sides. Kagome's eyes drifted to his face, which looked hauntingly familiar. But this couldn't be him. Inuyasha was thousands of miles away in Japan, a world apart. Other small inconsistancies like the hair color and lack of hanyo ears contradicted with the man's familiar visage. And yet, Kagome couldn't look away.

"You say it's safe here for halfs?" The gruff timbre of his question slid shivers down her spine as she nodded. Ciaran seemed to huff up twice in stature as the stranger eyed the group and walked over towards the river where Kagome, James, and Mairead were bathing.

"Cool it kid, I'm just gonna take a dip in the river. I've been traveling too long." The Ghillie Dubh gave a snort and watched eagle-eyed as the foreigner shed his vest, shirt, and hose in a clear show of immodesty. Kagome turned around to preserve her own sense of modesty and hide her blush, continuing to play with James as she dipped his flailing legs in the water.

"So I've heard that a woman called the Gleistag is the healer and witch of this town. That's you, right? Got anything to dye my hair with?" She peeked over her shoulder at the question as time seemed to stop. Slowly the man behind her was working the brown greasy substance out of his hair with a bar of lye, leaving behind pale starlight silver. Her gasp must have been audible to him, as one newly freed dog ear flicked in her direction.

"_Inuyasha..._" She was sure that her eyes couldn't get any wider, and her surprise was recipricated when he nearly dropped the lye in shock. He looked her up and down, eyes settling in on her face before narrowing in unbelieving suspicion.

"Kagome?"


	4. Chapter 4

Hello everyone!

I've moved all my stories onto Ao3 due to 's content policies about explicit writing. Find me at Archive of our Own with the username UnderwaterOphelia and see all the updates I've posted! I'm also on Tumblr, and my username is underwater0phelia, with a zero instead of the letter o. Hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Ophelia


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